Antonis Koukoutsis

About

My practice explores being, non-being and how the two relate. Going beyond this duality there is a sea of ontological interrelations, giving birth to forms and structures. Multidimensional, ever-evolving, infinite. Add sensibility to a structure and you have a dialectic. Art allows for that.

As much as it is considered, it is intuitive. It can be subtle, yet bold. Elusive, yet omnipresent. Push and pull, just like the sea. There is rhythm in that, a kind of poetry, which hopefully when activated contextually, resonates. In making sense, it questions, it reveals, it generates.

In the eternal now, we dance. And in doing so, attempt to holistically invoke the capacities of experience. What is there if not experience? I experience, therefore I paint. An emerging synthesis of ethics, cosmology, aesthetics, lived experience and anything else really.

And potential. This is where the cultivation comes in. I work like a gardener; tending to the garden. Flourishing can be understood as a measure of resonance, and it is not absolute or constant. There is a multiplicity of truths, positions, intentions, ways of being and becoming.

This is where agency comes into the picture. The wind speaks of freedom. The path is made by walking it, and the unknown whistles. And a door opens and something appears. To opening doors. To providing lenses of perception. To honouring this. To enjoying it. Why not?

Overcoming hierarchies, the one complements the many and the many the one. Differentiation and Integration. Mathematical or ontological. Emotional or Intellectual. Physical or Spiritual. What is the difference? There is a sense of compassion in this approach.

And the lovers embrace. To love and to respect is not always straightforward, yet one might say nothing is more rewarding. I believe in us. It is a choice. Painting and love making are a lot alike. Both can be transcendental.

There is a childlike quality present. A curiosity which longs for wisdom. When the process makes sense a form of communion with the work emerges, which co-leads the process, resembling a dialogue or dance. Trust, gratitude, and fulfilment are key elements.

The core is almost unknowable, yet it reveals itself in circles. I touch with my finger the surface of the cosmic water and that creates ripples. The ripples of my own making meet with that of others and together they make a field. May it be vast, may it be endless, may it be free.

May we be who we want and need to be and may we enjoy it.

Free are together and together are free.